Beyond the Desolate Horizon
by Lucia and Daimon
Summary: Sometimes survival is more painful than death...but sometimes, one will be forced to keep living. Sparse elements of Ragnarok Online.


Disclaimer: Naruto and the very few things we used from Ragnarok Online don't belong to us. But, that doesn't stop us from twisting them for our own amusement...

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WE CHOSE THIS PATH, KNOWING THE COSTS

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Pain. Physical agony that lets us know we are alive.

Pain. Mental torture that pulls at one's very sanity.

Rage. A primal force unleashed when a being is pushed beyond the limits of pain.

Her fists beat the wall, no, the solid air in front of the wall. They watched from the other side, false, blank faces without a heart behind them. Monsters. She painted their wall red and screamed her grief at them. Grief for the family lost, grief for the hills turned to ash, grief for the future unfairly taken. Grief for dark eyes and limb bodies, for the blackness in the sky instead of light.

Shadows anchored around her limbs and pulled her down, down, down into her shadow, a cold and impersonal darkness. She struggled, but her limbs melted and froze into lead. She screeched, but no air could find the purchase in her chest.

-Remember, a voice urged. -Remember.

Spring. A sun peeked out from behind verdant mountains. Birdsong and flowering trees. She wore flowers in Her hair then. Little white things that stood out from Her hair. They sat on a hill over looking a church and ate watermelon, the juices dripping down their chins and staining their frocks. They watched the clouds overhead.

Summer. The sun roasted the world below, scaring her shadow to hide under her feet. She stood by the door of the church, staring out at the fields of wheat. Her hair was worn down and plain now, the red-gold mass down to Her back. Her hands were soft and white and delicate. She had left Her a white flower on her pillow, shyly, a hope of future commitment. She was running through the field, barefoot, in pants. Her hands were tough and calloused.

Fall. The sun drooped near the horizon. Liberated, shadows sprang forth and writhed in the dying light. The trees burned through the day and night in reds and yellows and oranges. They met in the golden fields, where the harvesters would soon collect. She handed her back the flower, now wilted, sadly. Shoulders dropped, posture showing her defeat to the world, but then She offered Her hand and took her to the town, where they waited. They went over hills and under mountains, between the trees and through the valleys. She began to smile again.

Winter. The sun was dead and rose no more. The snow fell black and thick and smothered the world. Her...

-Remember.

Her skin was pale and the moon was cracked. She cried, so she offered a shoulder while they ran, ran, ran from the silence as thick as death and the stars. In the forest, others lay in the thick, black snow, white and unmoving, marble statues from another era.

-Remember.

They emerged from the forest and the sun was a endless hole in the sky. Metal spiraled to the heavens and then She was gone, flies taking Her to their hive. They went but Her wonderful mind fled, Her eyes, not unlike crystal shattering, dead to all but still living. Her cries distorting to the warping of steel and she fought fought fought until her fists were meat.

-They did this.

The shadow around her burned up as the harsh light above fired up. Her arms and legs were pinned on the metal slab. They were all around her, fly heads and gangly bodies in white coats, looking down upon her. Killers, murderers, they took her.

-Will you let them go?

No, her lips curled back to show teeth. She was a wolf, she was Fenris, she was Sköll and Hati.

-Make them pay.

Two broke from the crowd, inching closer, long shining needle in hand. Closer, closer. She let it build in her- power, the sweet current the filled her body and the lion's head of her anger rose. They would know her rage. They raised the needle.

She lunged, no, surged upwards, the metal ripping like paper against her might, grabbing its hands and grinning madly she crunched them like an eggshell. She pulled the rest of herself up, shifting her posture and flung it at the far wall. They scattered before their fellow, who impacted the wall and stopped moving. The other one was paralyzed. She slammed her head on it. It went down. She surveyed them, the flies scattering and clinging to the wall, fists pounding in futility. She stepped down from the slab, stalking them.

Metal things pulled themselves from the wall, buzzing like a cacophony of insane flies. She paid them no heed until one lashed out with a spider-slim leg. It's drill cut her opened a tear in her side. A threat. She pivoted, punched the center orb of one with an open palm, flared her power and shattered the fragile innards. One crept up behind and jarred her with electricity. She spun on her heel and grabbed on its legs. She snapped it over her knee and pulled it close, only to let go and punch it once, twice, her third punch cracking open its shell like an over-sized shellfish. Another dove at her, arcing downwards with whirling drill bits on the end of its arms. She smacked both away with backhanded fists. She snapped her leg up, driving it's head back with a crunch before bringing her heel down hard on it's head, glass shattering and metal twisting underfoot.

Three more circled, wary now, with the carcasses of their fellows littering the floor, wires sparking and metal bent in ways not meant to be done by the raw fist. The flies were stuck in here, she saw dimly, pounding on the walls while others behind glass stared onwards, slowly moving backwards. One darted at her, buzz-saw cutting the air above her as she ducked, legs, coiled, power seeping into her arm. She sprung up, open palm striking the underbelly of the metal creature. Power bloomed like a flower at the moment of impact, a beautiful lotus of pure mana, before it exploded, the mechanical creature lodged in the ceiling, smoking as it's innards melted and fused.

Warmth flooded her body, a sensation of almost-bliss melting through her mind. The world slowed to a crawl. A sleepy grin stole its way onto her face.

"I'll always be here for you. Always," She had said.

-She was taken.

Metal limbs closed around her arms. Reality. The pleasant feeling disappeared entirely, leaving the blackness, boiling and burning bile that it was, in it's wake. She snarled, broke free, ripping their legs and catapulted herself at the wall, twisting before she hit, and sprang off the wall at the flies hiding behind the glass. They may kill her, but the price would be high, and she would kill everyone who had desecrated that beautiful flower. Calling up every last speck of power, she pulled it to a point in front of her fist. The air shimmered and thickened with eagerness.

Her fist slowly approached the barrier the flies were hiding in.

They watched, surprise turning into horror, unable to comprehend their death coming to meet them.

A spark danced lazily in the air, twisting, turning, like the soul of a butterfly.

It touched the knuckles of her hand, deciding to rest there for a time.

She connected with the hardened glass, her fist compressing the spark and unleashing it's fury.

The world turned to darkness.

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She was cold. The outside of her skin may as well have been covered in a thin sheet of ice, the frost from a room kept cold and sterile. The air smelled of chemicals, sterile and dead and artificial. She turned- tried to, really. But her arms were pulled above her head. Cursory pulling revealed resistance. She opened one eye, then the other against bright light.

There were people standing over her.

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A/N That's it for the prologue, the next chapter will be up soon


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